Relatively speaking, the fight was child’s play. Jamerson, who spent his early years in the projects on the west side of Pontiac, Mich., was just glad no bullets were flying. He’d seen stuff like that before, too.

The 6-foot-5 Jamerson, the first member of his family to attend college, stayed the course with basketball as friends and family members chose less desirable paths. And he enters Saturday’s game at Morgan State as the nation’s best 3-point shooter.

A transfer from Owens Community College in Perrysburg, Ohio, Jamerson is shooting 51.7 percent from long range, more than three percentage points better than anyone else. His lights-out 7-for-7 performance in a 75-71 overtime win over North Carolina Central last Saturday bolstered his chances to finish as the nation’s leader with four regular-season games to go, and he continues to marvel teammates with his uncanny accuracy.

“Man, I’ve never seen nobody shoot it at a clip like him before,” said NSU guard Steven Whitley, who has played with and against future NBA players. “He knows he’s going to hit the shot, man. He don’t hesitate to take the shot. He has the ultimate green light.”

Things have not come easily for Jamerson, who grew up the son of a fast-food worker and a handyman. There was the time he was playing hoops with his friends on an outdoor, blacktop court at age 12, when a man jumped out of a car and started shooting at one of his fellow players .

There was the shootout he witnessed at a skating rink, one that left two cousins in jail .

And there was the time at a hotel party, when Jamerson saw “two clowns” fidgeting with pistols. He and his brother barely made it out of the room before those who stayed had their pockets cleaned out at gunpoint.

But no one is shooting the 3 better than a guy who, improbably, ended up at relatively obscure NSU. Yet no one around the program is surprised. When Jamerson visited the school as he looked to transfer from Owens, Spartans coach Robert Jones knew right away that he had a pure shooter on his hands.

“You could just see that his stroke was, like, just a picture-perfect stroke,” Jones said. “His elbow is tucked. His guide hand is straight. He releases it high. There’s no hitch, nothing. Whoever taught him how to shoot, or whoever he learned from, did a fantastic job with him.”

And that might be the strangest part of Jamerson’s story.

Learning the trade

So, who taught Jamerson that unassailable shot? The short answer: nobody.

Growing up, Jamerson spent his days with his friends on the blacktop shooting at sturdy double-rimmed hoops, which are taller than regulation indoor rims. That forced him to elevate his shot, which wouldn’t fall if it left his hands flat. His vertical leap gradually increased to 37 inches, among the highest in NSU’s program, which made it all the more difficult to defend his jumper.

By the time Jamerson got to middle school, coaches recognized his shooting potential and encouraged him to hone it.

“That just kind of sort of came natural,” Jamerson said. “And then once other people above me realized what I had, they started pushing for me and started making sure I stay in the gym and keep it nice, because they’d always seen something good in it.”

As a sophomore at Owens, after an academic glitch cost him a Division III roster spot out of high school, Jamerson was among the nation’s junior-college leaders with a 49.4 percentage from 3-point range.

An NSU assistant coach spotted him at a JuCo jamboree. Using the intertwined web of coaching connections, he reached out to Jamerson’s AAU coach and arranged a visit. By the time Jamerson, aware that shooting guard Jonathan Wade was about to graduate from NSU, committed to the Spartans, other schools were violating what Jones called “coaching etiquette” to swoop in and try to change his mind.

But as soon as his future teammates saw him shoot, they knew they had something special. Jamerson wasn’t going anywhere.

“I knew from day one that he was a straight sniper,” said senior power forward Jordan Butler, who is often frustrated while trying to guard Jamerson on the perimeter in practice. “I could tell he could shoot. And I tell him all the time, ‘Yo, I don’t know how you do it,’ but he just does it. I don’t know. It’s amazing.

“He might have some million-dollar arms, honestly, with a shot like that. It’s impressive. I think he can shoot with the best shooters in the world.”

A tough path

Back in Pontiac, those who knew Jamerson check the NCAA stats and swell with pride.

Clarence Archibald III, Jamerson’s AUU coach with the Pontiac Cobras from sixth grade through high school, said he’s not the least bit surprised that Jamerson has emerged as one of the nation’s elite long-range shooters.

And Jamerson believes he has Archibald and other coaches to thank for it. Archibald, a real estate property manager who lives in a tony Pontiac subdivision, was one a handful of coaches who, when something didn’t seem right at Jamerson’s home, would have him come over and sleep on the couch or an air mattress.

“We would get him over to our house as often as possible just to make sure that he sees both sides,” said Archibald, who has helped guide countless kids to basketball scholarships since he started with the Cobras — now the Michigan Soldiers — in the early 2000s. “There’s progress, and you can go from where you’re at to wherever you want to go.”

Jamerson, who hopes to follow Archibald into the real estate business after his playing days, can see that firsthand. Former NSU star Kyle O’Quinn is in his seventh NBA season — now with the Indiana Pacers — and several other former Spartans are making a living playing overseas.

“It’s definitely possible because you can see that it was done before — right here on this same court,” Jamerson said, sitting in the front row at Echols Hall. “So there’s definitely hope.”

That’s all he could ask for growing up, when Jamerson’s struggling family moved from the projects into a home, and then another home, and then another home, and then apartment before yet another home as his parents tried to keep four children fed and clothed. Jamerson, the youngest of the four, has a kindred spirit in Jones. The NSU coach came up hard in the projects of South Jamaica, Queens, in New York City. Jones said the commonality, which didn’t come up until Jamerson was enrolled, helps him relate to Jamerson.

“Without question,” Jones said. “And I think it helps him relate to me. We have the connection that we can talk to each other a little different. We understand each other a little better.”

Jamerson, who counts among his goals winning a MEAC title, remaining on top of the 3-point-percentage standings and competing in the postseason 3-point championship, understands that shooting a basketball well can be done anywhere.

Never mind that he’s not at North Carolina, Kansas, Duke or Kentucky. As Gene Hackman’s character famously demonstrated in “Hoosiers,” the rims are 10 feet off the ground everywhere.

“You can be a shooter no matter what school you’re at,” Jamerson said. “Shooting the ball is one thing that’s worldwide. If you can shoot, you can just shoot.”